


the dance, said he

by kristin



Category: The Seventh Seal (1957)
Genre: Gen, Religious Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristin/pseuds/kristin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Why do you seek God?” asked Death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the dance, said he

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Assimbya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assimbya/gifts).



> Tanks to A, K, and S for the beta-ing and hand holding.

“I do not understand it,” said Antonius. His hand hovered above his rook, his other resting pale above the rough wood of the table.

“There are many things that could refer to, based on the questions you continually ask,” replied Death. He did not bother looking at the board. It would not tell him as much as Antonius’ face, and, of course, he could see beyond that as well.

“Why, when you came to me in the church, did you resort to trickery?” Antonius asked, dropping his hand away from the chess board.

“You had only to look up,” Death replied. For it was true. Antonius could have glanced up and seen him. The truth did not matter, though, for he never would have, too engaged in the motions of piety.

“That does not answer the question,” said Antonius, his voice firm.

“Such a strange thing. You have so many questions, Antonius Block, but you never ask the ones that matter.”

“Would you answer me if I did?” Antonius had dropped all pretense of looking at the board now, his eyes staring back at Death’s.

“There are no answers in Death,” he replied.

“Then what does it matter which questions I ask?”

“It matters. But what about you, Antonius Block, would you answer questions from Death himself?” asked Death, knowing the answer.

“I do not fear you,” answered Antonius. It was a truth, but it did not stand alone.

“No, you fear what comes after I leave your side,” said Death as he continued to stare the knight down.

“I fear nothing.”

“Exactly.”

Antonius made a show of looking at the board, flicking his eyes as if counting moves as he said, “Ask me your questions then, if you must.”

“Why do you seek God?” asked Death.

He could see the impulse running about under Antonius’ skin, the itch to lie. He saw it pass, as Antonius said, “She believed.”

“She?” asked Death, though he knew the answer the way he knew Antonius: fully.

“She, Karin, beloved.”

“And you do not,” said Death, but he was ignored, as Antonius continued, lost in a bright memory.

“It was incandescent. She loved Him like I loved her, with a full heart and great joy,” he sighed, his eyes darkening again, “and so it was I listened to Raval and left her side.”

“You wanted to prove your faith equal to hers.”

“No, I went to find an equal faith,” said Antonius, “for while I had faith, it was a flickering candle to her raging fire. There was a God, but it did not matter to me. So I set off to find surety.”

“And you found me instead,” said Death.

“Yes, you,” said Antonius, “Though I did not know you then.” His voice brimmed with force. “You came along the trek as my fellow knights fell to sickness and hunger weakened our bodies and minds. And you stayed through the heat and bugs and strange languages."

"And through battle," Death prompted.

"Yes." He remained silent a moment. Death did not fill it. He knew there were more words to come. "It is there I first knew you," said Antonius after the silence had stretched out.

"You had known me long before, though. You had seen me next to your father's corpse," said Death. For he had noted Antonius even then, had known this conversation would come.

"Yes, I saw you then, but I did not know you."

"That is different."

"I was fighting one of them. I had killed before, but this was different," said Antonius, now lost in his memory, not looking at either Death or the game between them. No, he was seeing the past.

"Why? Did he plead or beg? That happens often," said Death knowingly.

"No, he smiled," said Antonius. "He smiled, and I smiled back."

"As you killed him?"

"Yes. I can see it now, like it was yesterday. There I stood, having lost my horse, sword sinking into his body, and I saw it."

It had been beautiful, the sweep of Antonius’ sword, the joyful way Khayr had fought him, ready to meet him. Oh, yes, Death remembered that scene.

"It?" asked Death, more as a prompt than a query.

"You," said Antonius, reverence in his voice. "You were there, reflected in his eyes. You were bright and shining. I thought for a moment it was only the sun, that I saw myself."

"I'm sure that is what it was," said Death, sure that it wasn’t.

“But it was not. For the figure I saw was wearing bright robes, had wings brighter than anything I had seen before. You did not look as you appear now. You were,” he paused, searching for the word, “joyful.”

“But you knew it was me.”

"Yes. I knew you, could name you. It was like--” Antonius stumbled over his words, thoughts tripping up over themselves in his mind. Death watched them twirl until he continued with, “Have you ever seen everything, not just what you were limited to with your eyes, but the whole of a moment, no fleshly limitations?"

"No,” lied Death.

"It was like I had eyes in the back of my head and I could see all around, not just the man on the ground, but the whole of the field. My soul had fled upwards with his as it left his body." Antonius fell silent.

"And then? It seems a strange place to end a tale. And I do know strange endings," said Death.

"But you know what it is that I saw then. Though battle continued, all the mayhem and blood, through the chaos only one thing mattered." Antonius paused. “There was nothing. His eyes held nothing. ”

"And so you mourned him," said Death.

"I did not know him beyond the way his chest gave way under my sword. No, I mourned for myself."

"I was not ready to take you then," said Death.

"It might have been better. For what I was mourning was any chance of faith, all the answers and certainty lost; small as they might have been. I cried out over and over for some answer, anything to let me know that there was something beyond the nothingness I saw in his eyes."

"Did you receive any answer?" asked Death.

"Nothing. I cursed God himself in my anger, over and over, decrying him for tormenting me so, for not answering, for not being there,” Antonius said in the whispered pleas of a confession. “And, yet there remained only what there had been before. Nothing.”

"But there was me? Are you so impolite as to call me nothing?"

"That is true," said Antonius, "I did see you. You crept up into crops, and burned skin with fever. I saw you crashing in destructive waves and withering with hunger."

"Anywhere else?" asked Death, hand toying with his queen.

"Yes," said Antonius, not quite answering. But Death knew. Knew the way Antonius had seen him on every polished surface, reflected in his own eyes.

"But I did not take you," said Death.

"No, and so I have returned, hollow, seeking something beyond you, beyond this," he said, hand sweeping to encompass his room, his flesh. His existence.

"Yes, You did return home.” Death pause, then added, “For Karin."

"Yes," lied Antonius.

"She mourned you, even as you mourned yourself." Her grief had not cracked the rock of her faith, Death did not add. It still raged in her brighter than any inferno. Some pains were unnecessary.

"Mourned?" Antonius stressed the last syllable, letting it hover on his lips like an accusation.

"Yes," Death replied plainly.

"Then it was for nothing that I kept playing." Kept living, he did not say, though it was his clear meaning.

"For nothing? But what about the jugglers, little Mikael? Were they not worth it. They are smiling even now," said Death kindly.

"You knew," said Antonius, and it was not a question.

"I know."

A look of defeat flitted over Antonius’ face and then- yes, then came what he had been waiting for. "But then the game is ended," said Antonius.

"It is over," said Death.

And he could see it then, as the knowledge flooded Antonius' soul, welling up and spilling out onto his face. “I know the question I need to ask now,” Antonius said, “What happens next?”

“Everything.”

Death took his hand and Antonius began to dance.


End file.
